


Not In The Stars But In Ourselves

by Nevcolleil



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-03 11:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1742369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?” (Garth Nix)  Nick Burkhardt leads a complicated life - balancing his professional life as a Portland PD detective with his personal relationship with his captain. And then Nick learns about his heritage as a grimm and life becomes far less simple...</p><p>This is a series of scenes from a re-write of the show where Nick and Sean are in an established relationship when the show begins.</p><p>Chapter One: from Face Off<br/>Chapter Two: from Octopus Head</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Face Off

**Author's Note:**

> This is a re-write of Grimm featuring an AU in which Nick is already in a relationship with his captain when he discovers the wessen world. Episodes are addressed in no particular order. Some episodes are represented by singular scenes which may read as if out of context for those not familiar with canon.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In an AU of the Season 2 episode "Face Off", Nick confronts Sean in the woods - as a grimm and as a scorned lover.

"How- How long?" There is such a terrible blankness in Nick's voice. Sean can only imagine what he's thinking.

"Nick-"

" _How long_ have you known about me?"

There's no use in lying about it now. "Since the beginning."

"The- the beginning of _what_? The curse? Since _I_ knew about it-" Nick struggles.

And Sean takes a deep breath. "Since we got together," he says.

There is _no_ look more terrible than the one that crosses Nick's face now.

"Nickie..." Sean takes a step towards him, but Nick flinches back. 

" _Don't_."

He'd known that this would happen... Damn it, Sean had _known_. He'd wanted to tell Nick as soon as he'd suspected, but Nick would have thought that he was crazy then. Nick's heritage was still just speculation, and their relationship was so new.

Then Nick's aunt came around... and Sean's priority became preventing her from tainting Nick's views on what being a grimm means. Maybe if Adalind hadn't gotten spotted taking her out, Sean could have told Nick just after she died, but this reveal was never going to be easy after Nick saw a hexenbeist trying to kill the woman who'd raised him. 

"So _you're_ the Royal in Portland..." 

"I've wanted to tell you."

"Then why didn't you?"

'Because you'd hate me if you knew everything,' Sean doesn't say.

"You tried to have Aunt Marie killed, didn't you?"

Nick _is_ one of his best detectives. Of course he's connected Sean's status with the power needed to pull off something like Marie Kessler's assassination, even without having seen Sean's wessen form.

Sean would almost be proud if he weren't feeling so devastated.

"I... know it may be hard for you to understand," he says, looking Nick in the eye, "but I only did what was best for you."

"Oh my god..."

It's only a momentary letting down of Nick's guard when Nick closes his eyes; his gun arm wavers just slightly, and his aim becomes only less steady - but it's something, and it gives Sean hope.

" _Everything_ I've done has been to protect you, Nickie," Sean begins quickly, acutely aware that this may be his only chance to explain himself.

"To use me, you mean," Nick fires back automatically. And Sean isn't sure he prefers the grimm's anger to his pain. "You expect me to believe that this - _we_ \- everything wasn't about keeping the local grimm under your control? Bringing me into your department... taking me to bed-"

"I didn't know about your heritage the first time I kissed you. And I certainly didn't know about it when I promoted you," Sean tells him sincerely.

"But it's awful convenient, isn't it?" Nick demands. "You need the key. I get the key. You get me..."

"I had you before you knew anything about the keys," Sean says sharply, unable to keep his own anger out of his tone. He knows it's misplaced. He's angry at Adalind for complicating everything. He's angry at Marie for not being the exceptional kind of grimm that her nephew's turned out to be, and forcing Sean's hand. 

That doesn't stop the words from striking Nick, however, like a blow. 

Sean can take a lot of things... He can stand Nick being angry at him for keeping things from him. He can even tolerate Nick's blaming him for Marie or Adalind or any number of things. But Sean's never wanted Nick to feel _ashamed_ for having been with him.

He puts his hands up in a clear sign of non-agression, and takes another step forward, this time slow enough that Nick sees he isn't going to try anything. "Nick, I swear to you... You and I? Has nothing to do with the fact that you're a grimm."

"Except that it made it pretty easy for you to get what you wanted out of me, right?" Nick says with a bitter-looking smirk that Nick can only manage to keep together for a second. The urge to sweep Nick up in his arms and comfort him - and the urge to _not get shot_ for approaching the grimm too swiftly - wage war inside Sean. " _Is_ there even a curse? Or have you and Adalind been laughing behind my back all this time at the poor, stupid grimm- Don't come any closer!"

Sean stops within arm's distance of Nick, Nick's arm still stretched out between them, gun still pointed - almost absent-mindedly now - in Sean's direction.

"Adalind is a _bitch_ ," Sean says, with all of the hatred he truly feels. "If it wasn't for her magic, I would have killed her by now myself."

"Wow. That's a pretty cold thing to say about someone you've slept with, Captain," Nick bites out, flashing another not-quite-smile at Sean. "Should I be worried that you feel that way about all your conquests?"

Actually, perhaps Sean can't take all that much.

Maybe it's the way Nick seems to be shutting down on him... Icing over in all of his hurt and his suspicion, so that only a cold rage remains on his surface. Or maybe it's the way he says ' _Captain_ ' - in lieu of Sean's given name - with such careful distaste.

Whatever it is, Sean reaches the sudden limit of his patience with this detente. 

Calling on the wessen side of himself for the necessary speed, he knocks Nick's gun out of his hand while blocking Nick's instantaneous counter blow.

Their fight is quite a thing to see. Sean doesn't _want_ to fight Nick... He doesn't want to hurt him. He just wants to stop Nick from leaping for his gun and also hitting Sean like he'd like to break him into pieces.

"Don't ever compare yourself to her," Sean says when he can. "Nick, listen to me... It's not what you think."

"What _are_ you?" Nick asks like Sean hasn't spoken. The steady give-and-take of their battle has no doubt made it obvious that Sean can't possibly be human.

Sean gets a grip of Nick's forearms. They've gone to the ground, and Sean rolls them so that he's straddling Nick's waist.

"If you'd just let me-"

" _No_."

Nick flips them out of the mud, and Sean has to roll away from him to avoid getting kicked in the head at the same time. 

Sean only knows one way to throw Nick off of his game enough to get the upper hand. He woges.

Nick slips on the mossy earth. This time, when Sean grabs Nick, he grabs him from behind. They fall hard on their sides and Sean throws one leg over both of Nick's to delay his efforts to break free.

"Nick, please..."

"Just do it already. Whatever you called me here to-"

Sean lets him go, but only so he can hold up the item he's palmed out of his pocket.

"I came here to give you _this_!" Sean tells Nick quickly.

Nick goes still.

"I wasn't taking it from you. I only removed it from your desk to keep Adalind from finding it."

"I don't-"

"I asked you here so I could finally tell you. Everything. What I know... what I am-"

Nick comes back to life at that. He snatches the key out of Sean's hand.

"Why would you just give this back to me?"

Sean wraps an arm around Nick's chest and flips him over, so that he can hold Nick still with the weight of his body - if only for a moment - and his hands are free to grab Nick's face and hold it steady for his kiss.

Of course Nick resists him. Half-heartedly, Sean might have said before he'd seen Nick fight... Now he thinks Nick's hands, as they fist in his shirtfront, and Nick's hard lips are only a token protest.

Sean licks at the tense line of Nick's mouth and smooths his hands over the curves of Nick's jaw, so that he's cradling Nick's head rather than restraining it, and he's relieved to be proven right.

Nick's lips part. On a shudder and a sigh, he gives beneath Sean's body, opening to Sean's tongue and relaxing into Sean's embrace, like he just can't help it - like he has to have this, if only for a second.

Sean pulls back before Nick can decide that that second is over.

"I love you," he says, keeping his eyes on Nick's wet lips in case he wouldn't like what he might see in Nick's eyes. "Whatever else I may be, I _am_ in love with you. And I'm giving you back the key because I trust you to protect it. Despite every reason you have not to, what I'm asking from you in return is that you trust me." 

Sean can't _not_ look at Nick now - to see how Nick is looking at him.

Nick visibly swallows... He looks nowhere near ready to do what Sean has asked, but he also looks far from coolly vengeful as he had looked before.

"How am I supposed to do that?" Nick asks at last. 

His words are quiet, his breathing winded. Sean wipes away a drop of blood that has gathered on Nick's bottom lip - busted during their altercation - with the pad of his thumb. Nick blinks, his primary expression still wounded, but he doesn't draw away from Sean's touch and Sean tries to take that as a good sign.

"Help me break the curse. Then we can figure that out," Sean says. And he has to add, "I'll do anything I can to make this up to you." 

As if anything could make up for what Nick must perceive as a prolonged manipulation.

If their positions were reversed, could Sean forgive such a betrayal? He pushes back the strongest wave of despair to threaten to overtake him since he realized Nick's "Aunt Marie" was the Grimm Marie of modern wessen legend. 

'Nick is a better man than me,' Sean thinks, to steel himself. That is exactly why Sean has done everything in his power to shield his grimm from the influence of others. 

Nick stares at him. Sean stares back. He doesn't mean to entreat anything with his gaze, but Nick must see something of an entreaty in his eyes because he swallows again and says, "Sean..." Like it's all he can do to say that much and hold onto some semblance of calm in the midst of everything that has happened today.

"You don't have to make me any promises right now," Sean says. "Just don't shut me out completely. Please."

God, Adalind would _coo_ to see them right now. For her sake, he almost hopes she's skipped the country by the time he's broken the curse that's bound him from harming her... among other things. Sean seriously doesn't know what he'd do if he got his hands on her and was free to do as he pleased after all of this.

Sean kisses Nick again - because he can, and because Nick lets him - and he hopes Nick doesn't respond the way that he does because this is the last time he plans to let Sean touch him.

And then Nick pushes carefully at his chest, and Sean moves over to let Nick up.

"Uh... Rosalee thinks she may have something that could help us with the curse," Nick says, when they're both standing. "At the spice shop."

Sean follows Nick out of the woods where Nick began his journey into Sean's world, and interacts awkwardly with Nick's friends as they concoct the supposed cure for Adalind's latest attempt at ruining his life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a re-write of the Season 4 premiere written in the same verse as my last installment. Each piece of this fic is meant to stand, not as a full alternate episode, but as a glimpse into this alternate universe, one scene at a time.

It starts off as such a beautiful, unremarkable - except maybe remarkably peaceful - day that Nick totally doesn't see it coming. And then, as it's been with every significant event that has ever occurred in Nick's life, things change very quickly. 

He's just stepped out of the shower and texted Sean that he's about to head over to Juliette's when the man himself strides into their bedroom like Nick's summoned him just by wishing. 

"Hey, you. Back so soon? I thought you were gonna put in some hours at the precinct?" 

Nick hasn't even finished his sentence when Sean pulls Nick into his arms - a look of such intense purpose on his face, that for a moment Nick feels a strange and unexpected instinct to back away. 

But he doesn't, of course... because it's Sean. And because Nick has seen that smile a thousand times before - that smile that Sean almost doesn't seem to be aware he's wearing whenever he wants something so badly, Nick can tell that he's convinced himself there is no alternative to his getting exactly what he's after. 

It's the kind of smile that, if they weren't lovers, Nick would probably be wise to be wary of - but Nick has benefitted from the attentions that come with that smile all too often. He is already half hard beneath the towel that's wrapped around his waist, just from seeing that look on Sean's face - from Sean's touch, one large hand gripping the back of Nick's neck to hold him steady, one curving along the edge of Nick's jaw as they kiss - when Sean tugs that final, flimsy barrier away. 

Nick moans. "I don't think I gave you a proper goodbye," Sean says, which Nick is more than okay with. 

They'd decided that a grimm in the wedding party is already borrowed trouble that Monroe and Rosalee do not need. A zauberbeist in the audience - not to mention a royal - would just be too much. The plan this morning had been for Sean to go in to work like usual while Nick attends the ceremony, then accompany Nick to the much smaller, more intimate, reception that Monroe and Rosalee have planned for afterwards. 

"Think we can manage 'proper' before I have to go?" Nick asks, taking Sean's bruising kisses and brusque hands as cues and nipping at Sean's throat with the kind of force they usually save for nights after close calls on the job. 

Nick misinterprets the way "Sean" stiffens - and the low growl that rumbles deep in Sean's throat. 

"Oh, you'll have plenty of time once I'm done with you," Sean says quietly, punctuating his words with a push that lands Nick on his back on their bed. 

"What-" Nick begins to question - but Sean dropping to his knees at Nick's feet, and shoving his way between Nick's thighs, is singularly distracting. 

By the time Nick lies, panting, in the mess of sheets that Sean rolls out of almost instantly - and with barely a second glance - he's almost forgotten the odd comment. 

But their lovemaking was rougher - and faster - than Nick is used to. He's lucky, in fact, that being Monroe's best man won't involve a significant amount of sitting as the day goes on. And he keeps waiting for Sean to turn back to him with the other smile that Nick's learned, when it comes to Sean, to equate with sex. That soft smile that Nick can never quite believe is aimed at him, except that Sean only ever wears it when they're alone in this room. 

Sean doesn't turn back. He doesn't stop to kiss Nick goodbye. He dresses efficiently, and doesn't even look at Nick as he says, "Thanks for that, Nick." 

Then Sean does look, and his expression is so cool, the curve of his lips so fake, that Nick feels the wrong of it all over. 

_'Thanks for that, Nick_.' Not Nickie - or any other term of endearment. And when has Sean ever thanked Nick for sex? 

"What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean?" Nick asks at last, but Sean is already headed out of the bedroom. He shows no sign of having heard Nick. "Sean!" 

Nick doesn't find the text until he's showered (again) and rushed into his tux. He missed a number of messages from Juliette while he and Sean were... doing whatever it is they did. Nick is silently brooding about it when he texts Juliette to let her know that he got her message ('nick, where ARE u? will drive myself. just get to the chapel!'). And there it is. 

Sean's response to his earlier text: 'Wait for me at Juliette's. I'll be right there.' The time stamp on the message makes no sense, and Sean hasn't been answering Nick's calls. 

It's only after the wedding descends into utter, unbelievable chaos that everything gains a sudden, sickening clarity. 

And by that time, Sean is already dying. 

 

No one argues when Nick insists that he be taken straight to the hospital - or if they do, he isn't aware of it. He is barely aware of Hank's promises to get to the bottom of what's happened, of Monroe and Rosalee promising to look into what's been done to him. He doesn't know how much he tells anyone about what he's just figured out. They have to know that Adalind had a hand in this, so he starts talking - but then it's like he blacks out without blacking out. He vaguely realizes that Juliette is holding his hand, that there are looks of horror, anger and concern exchanged as he speaks, but Nick is only really aware of the beat of his own heart, thunderous in his ears. 

He can't stop thinking about it. Those feelings of wrong he'd felt as he thought he was making love to Sean... That text, the calls... And the whole time Nick had been in bed with Adalind, Sean had been bleeding out on Juliette's floor, gunned down mid-search for Nick; trying to help Nick. 

His badge doesn't get him far at the hospital, but somehow his wild, red-rimmed eyes do. 

He's in the ER the first time Sean codes. Nick thinks his heart stops too. 

An orderly takes advantage of the opportunity to escort Nick into a waiting room, and by the time he can stand without the room spinning, they've moved Sean into a surgery bay. 

The amount of time that passes while Nick is haunting the urgent care wing is, for Nick, indeterminate. 

Monroe and Rosalee check in a time or two - with no real news. (Adalind is gone... They have no idea how she managed to take his powers before she left...) Juliette suddenly appears at Nick's side - or so it seems to Nick - and sits with him for a while. She fills him in on the FBI's investigation into the shooting, which distracts Nick from worrying about Sean with worries about Trubel only a little. 

Nick will never forgive himself if something happens to Teresa while he's too busy panicking to have her back, but at least she has Juliette and Hank to watch out for her. Steward is dead, and Teresa isn't the one lying frighteningly still in a hospital bed, unnaturally pale and seeming paler every time Nick looks... 

Somewhere in the middle of all the waiting, Hank and Wu force him to go home - to clean himself up and change out of his wrecked tux and have a minor breakdown when he sees the still unmade bed that serves as a silent reminder of Adalind's latest (and perhaps successful) attempt to destroy him. 

Nick throws every piece of bedding he finds - pillows and all - into the hallway outside the apartment and calls someone to come and have them hauled out to the dumpsters. 

When Nick gets back to the hospital, Sean has been moved into a private room. He can still feel the proof of how Adalind used him in her latest spell, and no sooner than Nick drops into a chair at Sean's bedside, does a wave of nausea assault Nick with such force it steals his breath. 

Like some sort of nightmare, it's while Nick is not in Sean's room that Sean's heart fails again. 

Nick comes back to find the tiny, glass-walled space filled with frantic doctors and nurses - all of the machines hooked up to Sean making noises Nick doesn't have to be a doctor to know aren't good. 

"Oh god..." 

"Clear!" 

"BP still dropping... We're losing him." 

All the while, Sean is totally unresponsive. He doesn't so much as twitch as a technician presses paddles to his chest, other than to jerk reflexively with the jolt of electricity. 

His face looks so peaceful, he could merely be asleep. He could be gone already...

"Okay, I'm calling it. Time of death..." 

The next thing Nick knows, he's sitting at Sean's bedside once more. He doesn't know if he waited for the doctors to clear out before collapsing beside his lover, or if he cleared them out. 

His face is pressed to the hand held between both of his. A hand as strong as Nick's own at the height of his powers - maybe even stronger. A hand that will never grasp his when he reaches for it again. 

Sean was Nick's friend, his captain, before he was his partner. He was - Nick secretly thought sometimes, thinking that Sean would probably laugh if he knew - Nick's _prince._

"When I saw that you're the grimm," says a voice from the other corner of the room - female, sophisticated - slightly accented, "... I thought I might have to kill you. That you'd turned on him." 

Nick doesn't even lift his head. What would be the point? Whatever's found him here - at the worst possible time - Nick can no longer see her for what she is. 

Maybe he doesn't care. Right now - right this minute - Sean is gone and Nick wouldn't care if every member of the Varrat we're waiting outside of the hospital for him.

"But that's not what happened, is it?" the voice continues. 

"Whoever you are, whatever you want..." Nick is almost impressed himself by how flat and cold his own voice can sound, "You've got one shot to do what you came for."

"And then?"

Then...

Nick will start caring. He can feel it already - the rage, the violence, of outstanding grief simmering just beneath the skin of his despair. Right at this moment, Nick is too devastated to want anything but for his pain to stop, but eventually, he knows, that rage will take hold, and then -

With his powers or without...

"Then I remind them what the Grimm were made for."

He's not even sure that that makes sense - to the voice, to anyone. But Nick can guess who sent Steward after Sean. Sean often spoke about his family wanting him dead like it was just a given that one day they would succeed. He'd played it off like he was being ironic, but Nick has long feared that, deep down, Sean meant it.

If Sean's family did this, Nick will personally clean Vienna out of royals, or die trying.

"Excellent," says the voice, just as Nick is thinking this, and from much closer than before.

He looks up to find a beautiful, blonde woman standing directly across from him, at Sean's opposite bedside. A beautiful, blonde woman holding a large, unnatural-looking black snake.

Nick freezes for one horrible, irretrievable moment, and then the hexenbeist (...even unable to see her woge, Nick can tell that's what she is) mutters something in Latin and the snake lunges out - with _two_ heads, one at each end. One set of fangs sinks into the woman's arm, and she gasps but holds steady.

The other latches onto Sean - directly above his heart.

Nick almost grabs at the thing, but inexplicably, the woman yells, "No, Nick!" and instinctively, Nick hesitates.

Sean's body is arched beneath the viper, his mouth open as if Sean were gasping-

It's when Nick notices this that he realizes that Sean is. He _is_ gasping - eyes open and somehow, amazingly, _impossibly_ alive.

"Oh my god!"

The hand still lying in Nick's loose grasp is not lying limply anymore - Sean grips Nick's hand hard enough to hurt, but Nick hardly feels it.

The snake has burst into a cloud of ash that dissipates almost instantly. 

Sean's head turns just as it does. "What- Nick." And the way the wary confusion just fades away when Sean sees Nick - seeing that soft smile that Nick feels like he hasn't seen in ages - pulls a bubble of genuine, almost giddy laughter out of Nick.

"Hey, you..." Nick says softly, for the second time today, throat closing on the realization that it's only been a _day_ \- and he had almost lost everything in the duration of it.

Then Sean sees the woman, who has moved around the bed to stand at Nick's shoulder. Nick tenses at her approach, even after watching her bring his lover back to life - she's still a hexenbeist, and Nick knows nothing about her.

At least, he doesn't until Sean says, "Mother?"


End file.
